Championship Manager 2 96-97 - The Hereford United Rebuild - Season 1

I get the most enjoyment out of Championship Manager games when I start off with a relatively small club and build them up, working my way to the top and ultimately trying to win as much as possible along the way. It feels like more of a challenge, and therefore more rewarding to take a team and shape them in your own image and go on to win things than it does to start the game with Manchester United and win the European Cup... And so on that tangent, in real life; at the end of the 1996-97 English Third Division, Hereford United were relegated with 47 points from 46 games with only 11 wins, 14 draws and 21 losses. After accomplishing everything I'd set out to accomplish with Queen's Park and, epilogue; going on to win the World Cup and the Euro Championship with Scotland national team, I wanted to give the English leagues a try and I opted to go for, statistically the worst team in the game at launch: Hereford United! After starting up the game and getting to look at the squad for the first time, I began to understand why this team struggled so much in the Third Division:

I clearly had some work to do! There was a distinct lack of central positioned players and I suspected a number of the current first team squad were potentially not good enough. After scouring the Free Transfer market meticulously, and discovering that Hereford could only afford upto £800 a week per signing... I initially brought in five new players; new Goalkeeper; Paul Tomlinson, Centre Backs; David Cooper and Ian Morgan, Centre Midfielder; Warren Patmore and Right-sided Forward; James Kelly who I hope alongside existing squad player; Adrian Foster is going to be the man to bag us plenty of goals this season!

Over the course of the season I also ended up adding Centre Midfielder: Gavin McCann, Right and Left Sided Attacking Winger; Kofi Nyamah and Left Back: Roger Stanislaus as well as a further x5 loan signings throughout the campaign, primarily to cover medium - long term injuries! Initially we got off to a slightly rocky start as I learned who was... bad... and who was... less bad... rotating players around the core of the team formed by my new signings. We suffered defeat in our opening game of the season again Leyton Orient, but returned the favour knocking them out in the 1st Round of the League Cup. And we lost away at Brighton 3-2, but otherwise picked up 7 wins in our first 9 to move into the top spot and make a promising start to the league campaign.

Results stayed fairly positive as we picked up a 4-3 win away at Rochdale in a bonkers game, a 4-1 win at home to Exeter, and a 3-2 win away at Barnet amongst others, only suffering defeat at Wigan, Swansea, Leyton Orient and Scunthorpe in the run up to January. Meanwhile in Cup competition, we got the best of Wrexham in the 2nd Round of the League Cup, and beat Chester in the 3rd round to set up a 4th round tie with Premier League titans; Manchester United in the 4th Round!

And in the Auto Windscreens Shield we scored results over Plymouth and Swansea in the Group stage and beat Colchester 3-2 in the 2nd Round to move on to a tie against Bristol Rovers in the Quarter Final. But first we had to contend with hosting The Red Devils at Edgar Street and going into the game fully expecting to get absolutely thrashed... we actually gave a good account of ourselves, only conceding a single goal to a 78th minute strike from Paul Scholes to lose the game 1-0.

And to be frank, with more luck I feel the game could have swung easily in our favour. Meanwhile we had also strung together a pretty decent FA Cup run, beating Non-League Marine in the 1st Round, Second Division Wycombe in the 2nd Round in absolutely superb 6-2 win, Third Division Wigan in the 3rd Round and Non-League Dover Athletic in the 4th Round to setup a 5th Round tie with another Premier League heavyweights; Chelsea! Whilst impressive cup runs are all good and nice though, my real focus was on league performance and initially just wanting to survive the drop, we actually found ourselves shaping up to be League Title contenders by January! As we sat comfortably on top with 18 wins from 26 games and 6 points clear of Northampton Town in 2nd.

Things were going pretty well! The new players were starting to settle in, I was starting to learn who was good enough to keep around and who was definitely going to be straight out the door at the first available opportunity, and instead of planning for a struggle to avoid the drop we were instead pushing to keep a gap on top of the League table! Despite a slight wobble where we lost 5-3 in the Windscreen Shield Quarter Final to Bristol Rovers, got thoroughly outplayed by Northampton and got thrashed 6-2 away, a loss in Hull 4-0 away, and a loss at home to Cambridge 3-1, we recovered with a 6-0 victory away at Hartlepool before pulling off what I can only describe as complete magic when we beat CHELSEA! at home: 3-2 in the FA Cup firth round to progress to the Quarter Final!

I low key think Chelsea are one of the best teams on this game, but they just didn't turn up for this one! That and, never under-estimate Ultra Defensive Long Ball in the 75th minute! The result here earned us a shot at First Division Bolton in the Quarter Final which we went on to win 1-0, at the same time retaining good form in the league, beating Rochdale and Wigan to continue holding down the Number 1 spot, before facing off against our third Premier League opposition this season in the FA Cup Semi-Final:

I was trying not to let my imagination run away with me, but I was genuinely starting to consider that maybe we could win the FA Cup in our first season and as a Division 3 side... something which I don't think I've ever accomplished on these games! But I knew this tie would be tough: Liverpool were duking it out for the Premier League title by this point and they had a pretty solid team. So we took the bus to Old Trafford - neutral territory for this tie - to face off against The Reds where normality was restored and they were just that little bit too good for us, beating us in a scoreline that flattered to deceive really with a confident 2-1 victory.

But I wasn't too disappointed. We played well enough, we just weren't on the same level and we didn't get totally embarrassed, had done well to get there e.t.c. and it put a nice tidy sum in the club bank account! Things were getting tight in the league though. Distracted slightly by the Cup success but also competing with a Cambridge United and Northampton Town team who seemingly never get beat we were only able to hold a 3 point lead over 2nd place despite 4 wins on the bounce. And that slipped to a 2 point deficit with a game in hand after drawing 1-1 at Chester and 0-0 at Carlisle. It all came down to the last game of the season. Win at Scarborough away and we were league champions. And we left it late... but an 81st minute goal from Ian Foster was enough to secure a 1-0 victory, a 2 point lead at the top and our first League Championship: Division 3 League Champions!

Slightly anti-climactic, as we had already achieved guaranteed promotion 2 weeks prior! But having held the top spot for most of the season, anything less than winning the title would have been disappointing for me. And I was delighted with the League Title win. Our first, but hopefully not our last! Player of the Season is a bit of a controversial one, in that it goes to Adrian Foster:

Despite bagging 24 goals and 19 assists, he picked up 3 red cards and a ban of 7 games for consecutive sendings off, leading me to drop him for the last x3 games of the season. He also wants far too much money at contract renewal at the end of this season so unless there is a dramatic change in fortune, he likely won't be with us come the start of next season. Top Goalscorer creeping just ahead of him went to Chris Hargreaves.

With 26 goals and 11 assists he spent most of the time as the 2nd Forward however he was very inconsistent, often being substituted for turgid 4's and 5's out of 10. And to be frank, unless his form is more consistent next season I don't know if he will hold down a regular place.

Warren Patmore on the other hand was low key the VIP of the whole team. 45 assists and 14 goals in 55 games he is the player I effectively built the whole team around and will definitely be starting next season. I'm hoping he goes from strength to strength as we move onto tougher competition but as a free transfer signing at the beginning of the season he has been a first class signing and changed the whole team dynamic.

And an honourable mention also to new Goalkeeper; Paul Tomlinson who I brought in as I suspected Andy De Bont and Chris McKenzie were both not good enough, and Tomlinson kept us in many a game where other sides may have potentially overwhelmed us. He had a few spotty games and was out with injuries for a couple of games but he largely played every game this season and has been outstanding. I'm just hoping he doesn't suffer a decline too much as we move on to next season.

My personal prize for winning the Division 3 Title was awarded Division 3 Manager of the Year which is always nice! Only x3 more to collect! But despite a very successful first season, and a campaign that sees us move up a level next year, I'm under no illusions. The team needs improvement in almost every area with some players just bang average or simply not good enough to hold down a regular first team place. And I hope to really exploit the contract renewals period at the end of the season to bring in a handful of new faces. With the right signings though, and if the current first team stars remain consistently good, I am quietly confident that we can at best hold down a mid-table finish in our first season in Division 2 and not find ourselves immediately suffering the drop back down!